Board of Supervisors to consider broadened conflict of interest disclosures

Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento is proposing county supervisors be required to disclose family relationships when voting on related items in response to reports First District Supervisor Andrew Do voted on funding for subcontracts with a mental health facility without publicly mentioning a close family connection.

Sarmiento’s proposed amendment to county policy would broaden the definition of family relationship, defining it as by “blood, adoption, marriage, domestic partnership and cohabitation.” The OC Board of Supervisors is set to consider his proposal at its Tuesday, Dec. 19, meeting.

Do voted with other members of the OC Board of Supervisors to approve funding for the Warner Wellness Center, for which his daughter is currently a vice president, according to her LinkedIn page, without disclosing during the meeting his family connection, as first reported by the LAist.

The county’s conflict of interest policy follows state law, which says public officials cannot make decisions that would financially benefit their minor children. The law does not apply to adult offspring.

“As elected officials, we have an obligation to be as transparent as possible with the public and disclose any potential conflicts of interest, especially when voting to spend taxpayer dollars,” Sarmiento said.

The two subcontracts in question, one for up to $625,000 that was approved in November 2022, and another for up to $1.2 million that was approved in May, were for mental health services, such as for the expansion of the county’s warmline.

Since LAist reported on the votes last month, some community leaders – and The Orange County Register’s editorial board – have called on Do to resign. Do said in a statement there has been no wrongdoing and the article was “null and void.”

“VAS (Viet American Society), the nonprofit mentioned, was already under three previous county contracts during COVID, well before my daughter was hired as an employee to help run its mental health clinic,” Do wrote in an op-ed that ran in the Register in response to the call for his resignation. The Warner Wellness Center is a DBA of the Viet American Society.

“Of note, my daughter was not a director or officer and she did not handle any of the nonprofit’s finances,” wrote Do, who declined to be interviewed for this story. “She did, though, have mental health experience (the Steinberg Institute) and is dual-language fluent — essential for Orange County’s Vietnamese-American community.”

Third District Supervisor Don Wagner said he does not think resignation is called for because Do didn’t do anything wrong.

“He was not just complying with state law, but, as I understand it, checked with counsel to make sure that everything was on the up and up,” Wagner said. “It is hard to see in those stories where more policies or different policies would make any particular difference because he was fully compliant with our policies, fully compliant with state law.”

Do and Fourth District Supervisor Doug Chaffee sit on an ad-hoc committee that oversees the process of updating the county’s contract policy manual.

The Board of Supervisors was at one point scheduled to discuss possible updates for 2024 to the manual at its Nov. 28 meeting, but the item was deleted from the agenda the day before. A county spokesperson said at the time there were “standing questions that need to be clarified” before going to the board.

Chaffee said that in looking at the policy, the committee didn’t rehash what is already in state law or widely accepted, such as the conflict of interest guidelines.

“If a board majority feels there needs to be something stronger in it about the children, it can be done. It could be proposed,” Chaffee said. “We have not had a meeting since that article came out and there’s really no need for it. We’ve done our work. Now it’s up to the board itself to review it. And any board member could suggest a change before we adopt it.”

Tracy La, executive director of nonprofit VietRISE, said it’s important to have transparency in local government.

“The immediate thing was that people need to know about this. If people are not aware that this is happening, who knows how much more money is being funneled to other entities in a similar fashion?” La said. “In our community, it is extremely important that our elected officials are transparent and honest and ethical about the decisions that they make.”

VietRISE, along with the Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice, have publicly called for Do to resign from the Board of Supervisors.

“We’re calling for his resignation, but also we’re calling for an audit of contracts that may have involved him,” said Carlos Perea, executive director of the Harbor Institute for Immigrant & Economic Justice. “The recent allegations specifically around channeling millions of dollars to a nonprofit where his daughter works is something that should raise red flags to the other supervisors. We’re hoping they take a closer look at that, but also hoping that there’s a call for an independent audit investigation on this misuse of public dollars.”

Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley said she asked county counsel to look further into OC’s policy.

“The law in California doesn’t prohibit the contract, but I just think more transparency around the disclosure piece is maybe where we as a county governance can have an impact,” Foley said.

Sarmiento is proposing a new disclosure policy as well as some other additions that would address how board officers submit discretionary fund projects for approval, including having to write how the project would “meet the social needs” of Orange County residents.

He said he is proposing revisions “to prevent these and similar conflicts of interest” from happening again, and said earlier in the week he would be requesting an investigation into the county contracts in question.